


And Nothing But

by recoveringrabbit



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 3x08 Speculation, Angst, F/M, but then a happy ending, mentions of Will Daniels - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jemma and Fitz demand answers. </p>
<p>Or, yet another 3x08 speculation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Nothing But

She takes a deep breath before speaking, tamping down the anger that threatens to flare up. He doesn’t deserve it, not when he’s been so good. “Fitz?” 

His head snaps to attention and he takes the pen from between his lips. “Jemma. Um, the simulations aren’t—”

“It’s not about that.” When did it happen that they didn’t talk about anything else? Because it’s not about the simulations, true, but it has everything to do with the reason they’re running the simulations in the first place. “Um, I was just speaking to Bobbi and she mentioned you had another lead on—on Will. Something to do with NASA?” She watches his eyes darken before they drop to his hands. The pen is strangled between his fingers. “It sounded like quite an advanced theory. She seemed surprised that I didn’t know.” Though not as surprised as she, Jemma, had been. She was operating under the theory that there was nothing either of them could say or do that would be worse than what had already happened. If they were still able to work together, to share the sunrise, even after she had confessed to the ultimate betrayal, what more could come between them? 

“Yeah,” he says, still not looking at her. Her heart sinks a little. “I didn’t want to—I wouldn’t say advanced, not really. We’re just putting pieces together.”

“We,” she repeats. “You and Bobbi?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “And Hunter.”

Looking up at the ceiling, she pushes back the anger again. Hunter hasn’t said two polite words to her in a week. “I’d like to know.”

“It isn’t anything yet.”

“Fitz.” Her voice raps out, traitor to her best intentions. “How can you know it isn’t anything without asking me? I might have data you don’t know about.”

She hopes the appeal to science will get through to him, and it does. At least, it works well enough to make him look at her again, shame and discomfort all over his face. “It looks bad, though, Jemma.”

She guesses, then, why he didn’t say something sooner. Annoyance and affection balance each other out. “I can handle it.”

In response, he pulls up several files on the computer in front of him: the monolith’s provenance, some heavily redacted reports on NASA stationary, blurry images of a symbol carved in stone, the picture she and Will had taken one night so she could demonstrate selfies. A sick feeling appears in her stomach at that. Beside her, Fitz clenches his jaw. Then he takes a deep breath and begins, zooming in on the patch on Will’s jacket. “The group. Um, the insignia looked like this one, which, we found in the castle we activated the monolith in…”

Bit by bit he walks her through his research. Academic presentations have always been a strength of his (or maybe she just always liked to hear his accent roll over their shared findings) and this one, despite the rather unbelievable subject matter, is no different. Never over-arguing and carefully qualifying every assertion, he is so unbiased she wouldn’t know if he believed what he was saying were it not for the fact that he hadn’t wanted to hurt her with the information. There is also the fact that the chain of evidence he puts before her is largely irrefutable—accept the identification of the patch and the rest follows, naturally and elegantly. Something was rotten on that planet. “So,” he finishes, “that’s it. There’s, um, no indication that he—that Will is implicated in anything…nefarious.”

“All right,” she says, nodding. “Yes, I see.”

He turns in the chair to face her, crosses his arms over his chest, appears to think better of it. “Is there…I mean, did you have any questions? “

“About this? No. Your logic is flawless as always. There’s a weakness in the trail in the early twentieth century, but you know that.” He nods. “But. But I still want to know why you didn’t tell me.”

He becomes very interested in closing down his windows. “I didn’t—I didn’t want—”

Somehow, she has found the time to learn the difference between when he knows what to say but can’t find it and when he doesn’t know what to say. “Only,” she presses, “this is _our_ project, isn’t it? Nothing you’ve found here is so very bad that it would be hurtful. And even so, I’d rather know the truth than—”

“It’s nothing to do with you.”

He does not lie to her—except that once, in retaliation for her own untruth—so she has to take this at face value. “What then?”

He pushes the chair back and gets to his feet, striding three paces away before coming back. “Don’t ask me.”

“I already did.”

“Well, I don’t want to tell you.”

“But you’ll tell Bobbi and Hunter?” She can’t quite keep the venom out of her voice. He shakes his head, protesting. "Stop making excuses, Fitz. All I want is the truth.”

“The truth?” He laughs mirthlessly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The truth. Okay. The truth is, I didn’t tell you because I can only pretend that the thought of him doesn’t make me sick for so long and I couldn’t face having to try all the time. All right? I look at that picture and it hurts worse than Ward. Hunter thinks I’m only doing this so I can find some excuse to shoot him through the eye. Some days I’m afraid he’s right. So yeah. Thought it would be best to keep it to myself.”

She doesn’t know what to say. She knew, of _course_ she knew, that it was unfair of her to ask him to do this; she had wondered at his preternatural calmness but chalked it up to his innate and overwhelming goodness. Fitz is the best man she knows. If anyone could manage…but even he.  “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” she croaks again, choked on his honesty.

This time his head shake is resigned, a little sad. “What good would it do?”

“At least I would know. I don’t—I want—” The words trip on her tongue; she’s not sure what to say that she hasn’t already. Secrets had nearly killed them several times before. She doesn’t want to start again with more between them. 

“If I told you,” he continues, ruthless, “it would _all_ come out, everything, and it’s ugly, and it _would_ hurt you, and that’s the last thing I want.”

Her scoff doesn’t know if it wants to laugh or cry. “And what exactly do you think you can say to me that I haven’t already told myself a million times?” He hasn’t accused her once, not even with his eyes, but she has the words already branded on her memory and she can fill them in for him: _you gave up on me_. Then it hadn’t been true. This time it is. She presses her lips together and looks up blurrily at the ceiling—apparently her body has decided on tears. “I shouldn’t have. I wish I hadn’t. I would do anything to go back and change it, if I could, but it _happened_ , Fitz, and I’ll just have to live with it. But it wasn’t his fault. It was mine.”

“No, of course not.” He bangs his fist hard against the counter; she doesn’t even jump. “Who could blame _him_? Of all the people in the world, I understand _his_ perspective—”

“What?” Her mind is scrambling, trying to get purchase on his point—how could he, the unshakably faithful, even begin to understand Will’s hopelessness?

“Jemma.” He gestures to her with the hand not clapped to the back of his neck. “You don’t even know. Of course he—you—even without being on a planet for fourteen years. That part of it I understand perfectly.”

She drops her eyes to her hands, flushing. Somewhere underneath the loud buzz that clouds clear thinking, she realizes that they’re talking about two entirely different things. “You mean—you’re upset about…um, me and him?” 

“Obviously,” he scoffs. “What did you think?”

Relief crashes over her like a wave. Her and Will—the absolute least important part of the whole thing. Well, not least important, since it’s hurting him so badly, but at least the one thing she can set his mind to rest about. She almost wants to laugh. “I thought you were angry at me for losing hope. For thinking you weren’t coming.”

“Yes,” he says, “that too. But I wasn’t there. I can’t blame you when I don’t know, really, what it was like.” His head drops until his chin nearly touches his chest, and she can hardly hear him when he speaks again. “Anyway, Jemma, you could rip my heart from my chest and step on it and I’d probably still forgive you—I can’t seem to help myself.”

But what has she done, over and over, but that? “You shouldn’t,” she says, clenching her hands into fists. “I don’t deserve it." 

His eyes are bluer than the whole planet; she thinks they are the color blue would be if Plato’s Forms were real. “Deserve? What does deserving have to do with love?”

It is as though the very composition of the air has instantly changed, charged with something and lacking something else, so that she and Fitz suddenly stand there gasping at each other like fish cast up on the shore. That word ought not have that effect. She knows what she feels for Fitz; she knows that he, at the very least, once felt it for her. And yet. “Love,” she says dumbly. “That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

She can see tears sparkling in his eyes, but he doesn’t let them fall.

“Then you know, Fitz. You must know that Will is a non-factor. He’s”—she takes a step closer to him, sensing his desire to run—“he was what I chose instead of dying of a broken heart. _That’s_ why I wouldn’t have survived without him. We said, once, that we couldn’t live if the other person didn’t—well, I tried, but it was only by pretending you had never lived.”

“Then why,” he says, his voice like gravel, and she knows what he wants to ask.

“Because no one deserves to be trapped there. I don’t want to get him back to _be_ with. Fitz—” She huffs a sharp breath, baffled once again at how bad they are at communicating. “Why do you think I didn’t tell anyone about him at first? There was _you_. That was enough. _You_ are all I want.” Her mouth quirks up a little. “And science. But mostly you.”

There. She’s done it. Her heart is bare before him and why did she think it would be so frightening? He is kind and good, even in his hurt; he will keep her safe if it kills him. She would be worried were she not utterly convinced that she will do the same for him as long as she draws breath. Never, never again will she allow herself to do anything less than match him—not because he deserves it, though he does, but because she loves him. She lifts her eyes to meet his, steady and true, and waits for what he will say next.

“He’s not a non-factor.”

She stops as if someone yanked her backwards. “What do you mean? Of course he is. At least as far as I’m concerned.”

“Not for me.”

“But _why_?” she wails, “I told you, it’s nothing, he means nothing—”

“Jemma!” He spins away from her before turning back, eyes as hot as brands. Every word is deliberate as he leans towards her, gesturing emphatically. “I’m only a man. I can’t be a bloody saint. No matter how much you tell me, the fact—the actual, literal fact—is that you and he had something on that planet that you and I have _never_ had, and that sits in my chest like a piece of burning solder, all the time. He can’t mean _nothing_. Not when he knows what it feels like to—” Even in his anger, he flushes at what he cannot bring himself to say. Instantly scarlet, she does the same. “I know,” he says more quietly, “it’s petty and disgusting. You’re entitled to do what you like. I haven’t got any say. But—”

“So fix it, Fitz.”

Shoulders heaving, he is suddenly seventeen again. “What?”

“I said _fix it_.” Once, she would have thought she was being brave or foolhardy, but now she knows she is only doing what is necessary. It requires no courage at all to take the two steps into his space, no bravery to put her hands over his heart and wait for him to meet her earnestness. She sucks in a breath, wondering if he’s always had those eyelashes and how she had never realized exactly how intoxicating his scent was. His lips part slightly as he looks down at her, but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. “Kiss me now. Then you’ll know.”

“Jemma.” Her name is almost a groan.

“Kiss me now,” she says urgently, “and you’ll be the last man to do it. You’ll be the last man to _ever_ do it, Fitz.”

His eyes drift closed, but his jaw hardens into a line she’s never seen before. “You can’t say that.”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”

“How,” he says, still not looking at her, “how can you say that when you don’t have all the information? You only had him before, now you only have me.”

She shakes her head, clutching at his shirt. “You’re saying it like it’s a choice, but it isn’t. At least, if it is I made it a long time ago. In chem lab and at SciOps when they wanted to separate us and with the Chitarui virus and at the bottom of the ocean and Hydra and every other day of our life. There _is_ no choice, Fitz.” Lowering her voice, she pushes up on her tiptoes until she is a breath away. “Let me show you.”

He wants to. Oh, he wants to. She can feel it in his trembling, hear it in his breathing, see it in the bob of his laryngeal prominence. It would be the easiest thing in the world to push just a little further and capture his lips, finally taking that last step towards what has always been, she feels, the inevitable consummation of their decade-long entanglement. But she does not. With Will she could, but with Fitz—they are, and always have been, equal partners; she will not move without knowing that he is firmly beside her. So she waits.

And then he takes a step back, taking her heart with him.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Jemma. It’s not that I don’t want—”

“I know,” she says, willing the tears back.

“I just…I can’t.”

“That’s all right.” Despite her best efforts, a lone tear escapes. “It won’t change. It’s you or nothing, Fitz. I know, because I tried to replace you and it didn’t work. But if you need—if it takes—” She stops, tries to breathe. His hand twitches like he wants to reach for her, but he schools it to his side. “Whatever you need. That’s what I mean.”

“Thank you,” he says.

They stand there swaying awkwardly for a minute: together, then apart, together, apart. The story of their lives. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks out, leaving her to turn to the shelves and let the tears fall.

* * *

In the grey light of the early morning, she sneaks to her special spot and waits. She needs the sun this morning. After her pointless night in the lab pouring over his research and her endless three o’clock hour tossing in her bed, she could do with a reminder that things are not as bad as they have been. She has the sun. She has him, even if it’s not the way she’d like. And they will figure it out together, as they always do.

Deep in her musings, she only vaguely notices the sound of shoes behind her until he speaks. “Jemma.” 

She turns over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, just as the sun breaks over the horizon.

And then he is there, his hands on her face firm but gentle, his breath ragged in the millisecond she hears it before her senses shrink entirely to the feel of his lips insistent against hers, so tender and strong that she forgets, for a minute, to kiss back. But only a minute. It is impossible not to respond to the invitation he offers, the acceptance of her promise, the way that she can see their whole life rolling out before them like a red carpet. The kiss itself is almost irrelevant; the weight of it is all in what it signifies between them. But precisely because of that, perhaps, it is the best one she’s ever had in her life, all heat and sweetness and a thorough attention to detail that, when she thinks about it much later, seems obvious. Good lord, she manages to wonder somewhere around the time her knees go weak as he sweeps his tongue against hers, why had they wasted all this time? So much for being geniuses.

She could kiss him forever—and will, she vows—but oxygen is unfortunately a necessity of life, and he has to pull away eventually. Wrapping her hand around his neck and into his hair, she beams up at him. “Do you believe me, then?”

“I’m only a man,” he says, resting his forehead against hers with his eyes at half-mast, “and the girl I love asked me to kiss her. She, um, she promised—”

“She meant it.”

“I decided I would be an idiot to not take her up on it.”

“And the rest?” she asks, not quite able to look at him.

He stoops and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Luckily, we’re the best in the world at figuring stuff out. As long as we do it—”

But she knows. So she kisses him again. And again. And again.

**Author's Note:**

> Squeaking this one in under the wire, no?
> 
> To be honest, I don't actually think this is how it will go, but a fragment of conversation got stuck in my head and it had to be worked out. I don't know, guys. Fic possession is a dangerous thing.


End file.
